They're the heavy favorites and should be the heavy favorites, though this was the exact spot the Warriors were in a year ago... and that didn't work out so well for the 2016 favorites at the end of the long playoff slog.
Now we know: The Warriors' postseason starts on Sunday at Oracle vs. Portland _ the Warriors' first time as the featured team in the prime opening Sunday slot, FYI.
Here was a key point by Stephen Curry after the Warriors' regular-season finale: "We're chasing something. We're not protecting anything this year."
Very interesting. The Warriors won it two years ago when they were the hungry upstarts and then lost in seven games last season when they were the record-breaking super-favorites.
So...
Anything can happen under playoff pressure and often does, but I thought this could be a good time just to lay out where the trouble spots _ and trouble teams _ might lie and which teams probably aren't quite lined up to give the Warriors much of a battle.
Short-hand theme: Athletic, ball-hawking teams with unpredictable dribble-penetrators, offensive-glass crashers and solid 3-point shooters have given the Warriors some extra difficulties in the Steve Kerr era, and there are a few of those kinds of teams out there.
Also, the more patterned, throw-the-ball-in-low kind of offenses that don't have versatile playmakers... just don't tend to give the Warriors a lot of issues.
And if you don't play top-level defense that puts pressure on Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant to make tough shots, you're probably not winning more than 1 game against the Warriors in any series.
That's how I'm looking at these playoffs, starting now.
It's a uniquely tunnel-vision way to look at the playoffs, but the Warriors have earned this because their strengths are so obvious and their weaknesses are... well, they're not really weaknesses, they're more like indistinct suppositions and potential leverage points.
So I've ranked each playoff team specific to the threat I believe it poses to the Warriors in a playoff series, not at all just by win-totals but by playing style, personnel and recent history...
_Note: This is not a ranking of each team's likelihood to win the title. That's separate.
This is strictly an evaluation of the relative challenges to the Warriors and only the Warriors should they meet in the playoffs.
And one thing you noticed when you look at the big picture ... is that this playoff bracket sets up quite, quite nicely for the Warriors.
_They can't play my Nos. 1, 3, 4 or 5 most threatening teams until the NBA Finals, and can't play Nos. 2 or 7 until the NBA Finals.
_Of the top 7 teams on this list, the only one who could play the Warriors before the conference finals ... is Utah, which I've ranked 6th and has to get through the Clippers to make it to the second round.
Though this is no guarantee of a smooth playoff run for the Warriors _ you never know when big trouble can strike _ this bracket is about as clean as they could've asked for, in just pure match-up potential.
Here's how I rank them and why ...
